How To Be The Best Possible Coach For Your Dream Student

You may be doing something that’s holding yourself, and the person you’re trying to serve, back.

On today’s special Thanksgiving day episode Russell talks about why it’s okay for people you are coaching to seek out coaches that can help them with things that you cannot. Here are some of the amazing things you will hear from Russell on Thanksgiving.

How Russell’s niece seeking a new gymnastic coach relates to marketing coaches.

Why as a coach you should allow your students to seek help from others who might be more helpful with certain aspects that you are not.

And finally, why seeking significance can actually hinder your ability to achieve it. And only after you make the switch to service and contribution are you able to achieve significance.

So listen here to find out why you should always be looking to help your clients, even if that means they need to go to someone else for guidance.

Full Episode Transcript

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and I want to welcome you to a very special episode of The Marketing Secrets podcast.

Alright everybody, today was Thanksgiving and I literally, it’s 10:15 at night and I just dropped my twin boys off at my brother’s house. And what’s crazy is when I’m done recording this podcast, I will then email it to my brother, he will then edit it and somehow magically get it on iTunes, and then his wife, Rochelle will then take it and transcribe it and put the transcript up there for you as well, and she’ll post the transcripts on Marketingsecrets.com, and they do that every single episode for you guys. So I’m grateful for them on this amazing Thanksgiving.

So yeah, so I thought I would just share that so you guys know how the process works. People always ask me, “how do you podcast?” and the answer is I don’t know. I literally get my phone out, click record and start sharing what’s on my mind. And I have something that’s on my mind today, I actually had so many things.

And part of me wanted to do an episode where I wrote down everything I’m thankful for, and I just haven’t done that yet because there’s a lot of things and I was going to go over them with you guys. Maybe I’ll still do that, I don’t know. And I had other things that I want to talk about, but there’s one message that just came pretty loud tonight and I thought it would be fun to share it with you guys.

And the reason why it kind of came to my mind was I was taking my kids back from the hotel, we’re in Utah right now, my parents live here. So we had Thanksgiving with my parents, and now we’re staying in a hotel close to their house. And we had all the kids over to the hotel swimming, and having fun and I was driving them back, driving some of my kids to my parents house, some of them to my brother’s house, just dropping kids off at cousin’s houses everywhere and I was driving one of my cousins, and she’s a gymnast, she’s an amazing gymnast.

And it’s funny because she worked out at gym for most of her whole career, and then she kind of hit a sticking point where she wasn’t getting further than she wanted to get. And she couldn’t get past that sticking point and some of her friends had gone to this other gym and they got some really good coaching, they had a really good coaching staff there. The coaches there had helped them get past these plateaus and it really helped.

She went back to her coach and she was like, “Hey, I want to go to this other gym to help me get past these plateaus so I can continue to progress.” And what’s crazy, and this is where the lesson is going to come from, for all of you guys. But what’s crazy is the coach, instead of being like, “Yeah, I care about you as an athlete, you should.” The coach took that personal and started yelling at her and screaming, and kicked her out, and kicked her little sister out, and kicked everyone out of the gym because she wanted to get help from other coaches. It’s crazy to me.

Sorry, the moral, the good part of the story is she’s gone to this other gym and all of her numbers and all of her things have gone up because this new coaching staff is able to help her.

And it’s funny, the other day on Facebook somebody posted something and they tagged me on it. They were talking about who your favorite marketer is, and they said, “Sorry Russell, unfortunately my favorite marketer now is Steven Larsen.” And they tagged me to apologize to me, and I thought it was so funny.

And I remember I messaged back to that person, I was like, “My only goal in this whole game is to get my clients, my students, my people, whatever you want to call them, a result. That’s it.” I don’t care how you get the result right. I think there’s a lot of times when we get stuck in the ego of ourselves and get so worried about, they must have success through my program or the way that I do things. And it’s like, no, no, no. If you actually care about your student, if you actually care about their well-being, if you actually want them to succeed, you’re not going to sit back and only go through your path.

And I posted it and I was like, “That’s amazing. I don’t care if you get it through meor through steven. Steven’s amazing. He’s got gifts, he’s got talents, he’s got abilities that I don’t have. And if you can get the result you’re looking for through him, I’m more pumped than you are.” I honestly just want to serve at this point in my life. I don’t care. And if someone else can serve better than me to a certain person or certain audience, that’s amazing. Let them. That’s why I bring amazing people to Funnel Hacking Live, people who can out teach me on certain topics because I just want people to get the result. That’s all that matters to me. And I think that’s how good coaches should be.

I remember growing up, I had a really, really good high school coach named Steve Bowdren and I’m super grateful to this day for him, for a couple of reasons. One, he was an amazing coach. But number two, he never cared if I went and got coaching from other places. During the off season I did freestyle at a freestyle club and had coaches there. And then I did Greco at places, I went to other high schools, other places. And he was always okay because he didn’t, he wasn’t tied into his ego of, “I must be Russell’s coach. I must be the only person that instills knowledge into his head.” He was like, “No, Russell wants to be the best. So I’m going to allow him to be the best.”

So he allowed me to go out there and be coached by tons of other people. So for that, if nothing else, outside of the fact that he was an amazing coach as well, but his willingness to do that is rare. We have so much ego tied into this thing, of it’s gotta be us, it’s gotta be us. And I Just wanted to share that because I see that happening a lot in the coaching world. We’re all coaching people in different aspects of their life, or helping with health or weight loss or fitness or finance or whatever it is you do. All the different products or services, but sometimes we get too caught up in that piece of it, that you want to be the one that’s instilling all the information and knowledge to your person and I think that that’s a tragedy because none of us are amazing at everything right.

It’s interesting, we had Bart Miller, who is a close friend, he’s the guy who makes me look good at all of our events, gets me all dressed. I pay him a bunch of money to take me shopping to look, not in my t-shirt and jeans, like I would have showed up to my events. And Bart has got a successful ecommerce business as well, he’s in my inner circle, pays me to be in my inner circle, stuff like that.

And he asked me, “Hey, I’m thinking about getting some help with the ecommerce side of my business, what do you think I should do?” and I was like, “Oh if I was you, I’d hire Ezra Firestone.” And he was like, “Really?” I’m like, ‘Oh, totally.” And he’s like, “Well, okay.” And then he’s like, “Can you introduce me to Ezra?” and I’m like, ‘Heck yeah man, Ezra’s the man.”

So I introduced him to Ezra. I’m like, “Ezra, Bart. Bart, Ezra. You guys should work together, I want 10% of everything you make in the future. Just kidding, go do your thing, have some fun, everyone blow up their businesses.” So they went off on that thing and Bart told me later, he said that Ezra was so confused like, “I don’t why Russell told you to sign up for my coaching. You’re his student. Why would he recommend me.” And stuff like that. Because for me, I don’t care. I don’t care how people get results, I just want people to get results.

I’ve seen, I’ve had people who are close to me inside my business who are like, because if you look at the Two Comma Club X coaching, I brought in a lot of coaches this year. I brought in Julie Stoian, I brought in Alex Charfin, Steven Larsen, all these amazing coaching, John Parkes, James Friell, people who are legitimately amazing at what they do.

And it’s funny because a lot of people have come to the program and gone through it, and I know a lot of people have signed up for Alex Charfin’s high end coaching after my program, after they’ve gone through a lot of our stuff. And they’ve gone through to Alex’s stuff. They’re introduced to him through my program and then they buy his stuff later. And I have people who are like, “You know Alex is just taking people from your program and signing up.” And they’re like freaking out.

And I have to stop them and be like, “Look, look, look. I don’t care how they get the result. I just want them to get the result. If they get that through us, that is a huge honor and I’m grateful and glad we can be a little piece of their journey. But if Alex can serve them at this level or this piece of their business different than I can, then why not? I don’t have one coach, I have tons of coaches.

It’s funny, I’ve heard people that I’ve got coaching with before tell other people like, “Russell Brunson learned everything that he learned from me.” And I smile because I learned a lot from them, and I’m grateful for them, and I don’t usually say stuff. But I’m like, man, I have tons of coaches. And it’s like every coach has something they’re amazing at. I have some gifts and abilities, there’s things that I can do inside a business that are really, really good.

And I’m proud of what I can do and it’s a piece I’m really, really good at. But there’s other pieces of the business that I’m not good at, that I don’t’ want to be good at. I don’t even want to. People ask me those questions and I’m like, “You should hire someone who’s focus is on that.” And they’re like, “But I pay you to coach me.” And I’m like, “You pay me to coach you on this piece that I’m the man at, but someone else is the man at that piece.” Or “Someone else is the woman at that piece and you should find the right people to coach you and mentor you along the way.”

The reason why I went on this whole rant, is because I just wanted to share with you guys is, don’t think that your client is your client. That’s the biggest problem that we have, and then we get in this scarcity mindset, like, “Oh it’s my person and if they read anybody else’s books or listen to anything else, they’re going to leave me.” If they leave you, that’s okay. Your job is not to protect them. Your job is to give them your piece, the thing that you’re good at, give them that piece.

So people come to me and I give them pieces that I’m really good at and I plug that thing in and I keep trying to develop my piece and get better at it, and share more of it. And I want to keep developing myself as a human, but I am not offended when somebody goes and gets coaching from somebody else. In fact, I’m grateful for it because that piece is going to get them closer and closer to their end result.

So stop thinking of your customer as your customer and realize that this is a human who is in the market that I’m in and they’re trying to get a result and I feel like my thing is the best and I’m going to serve them at the highest level that I can, but sometimes serving them at the highest level possible is to allow them to get coaching from different people at the same time.

I look at my amazing cousin, I guess she’s my niece. I look at her and she’s an amazing gymnast. And if that coach would have been like, “Yeah, you should get some help from that coach and this coach.” Instead of destroying this relationship with her and her family, instead it could have been this amazing thing where he opens up the door to say, “I know this person and this person. Here’s my rolodex. Here’s other people you could bring into your world that could help you with this piece and this piece.” And they could have all grown together.

And then guess what’s fascinating? This is the coolest thing. That original coach, the coach that opened up the door and allowed her to go to other places, would have been the one who got all the credit. That’s what’s interesting to me, I look at a lot of people who I’ve helped in business and then go off to other coaches and get other pieces in other places, and I’m so grateful for this, most of the time they come back and give me credit. “Russell helped me to grow my business.” “Russell gave me this piece. But I got this piece from this coach, and this piece from this coach.” But because I was the one who helped them and served them selflessly and allowed them to go and learn from other people, for whatever reason the credit still comes back to you.

It’s crazy because that coach, my nieces coach wants the significance, so because of that he’s trying to hold this in and keep the significance. And because of that he lost his significance. Whereas when you open it up and allow, and try to serve people at your best and don’t be offended if they come or they go and just do your thing, that’s when you get the significance you’re actually seeking for.

It’s been funny, Dave Woodward and I have had this conversation four or five times in the last two or three weeks, it’s kind of crazy. About this fascination of like these people I know who at one time in their life were very significant. They had the significance from what they do and then as time has gone by they’ve become less relevant and they’ve lost their significance.

So they try and they fight and they cling, trying to get significance, and they do it in this way where they feel like they’re going to feel more significant because of this, and all these things they’re trying to do. And the reality is the more they do it, the more it distances themselves from people and the more they lose their significance.

And I look at me, there was a time in my career where I was very significance driven as well and I was seeking after it and trying to get the recognition. I wanted to be on stage and I wanted people cheering my name and all this kind of stuff, and I was fighting for it, tooth and nail and it was hard to get. And I got some of it, which is why I kept, you get that and that fuel that drives you on for a while.

But I remember a couple of years into this business I got over it. I was like, that’s not as cool as I thought it was going to be. I was like, I’m not going to worry about significance anymore. And I remember it was a mental shift for me. I was like, I’m stop thinking about me and start thinking about my customer. And for me, that was when I started really transitioning from, “How do I serve Russell’s ego?” to “How do I serve my customer?” and it was this weird shift and I stopped seeking for significance and started seeking as a servant. How can I serve? How can I impact? How can I contribute to other people? And that’s what my shift became.

And then the most fascinating thing happened. When I made that shift mentally, I get more significance now than I can handle. Today was Thanksgiving. I probably conservatively would say that between email, text, Voxer, Instagram, Facebook, those are the platforms I see directly on my phone. Between those channels, I’d say conservatively today there was well over a hundred something people thanking me for what I do. So many I can’t even respond. I feel guilty, I can’t even respond back to all of them or I would have missed my whole family on Thanksgiving.

And then I open up Facebook and I can’t open up Facebook without seeing like 10 people talking about CLickfunnels and what we’re doing. I go to events and I get asked to do these huge events now and all this craziness that I’m not seeking for, it comes to me now. When I stopped seeking significance I got more significance than I can even handle. So much that I just want to hide sometimes, and I don’t know how to get rid of it, because it just keeps coming. But I can’t stop serving because I get addicted to that.

And I just want to tell these people who are seeking after significance, when you stop seeking significance and you start serving, you’ll get more significance than you’ll ever dream of. And it doesn’t seem right, it seems backwards and doesn’t make any logical sense, but it’s happened for me.

And the people in my herd, in my tribe, in my influence, who I’m able to communicate with, who listened to that and they believe it and they shift, they find the same thing. And it’s fascinating.

Most entrepreneurs, so if you’re in this spot don’t feel bad. Most of us get in this business because we want significance, we’ve a chip on our shoulder. Somebody said something bad about us, somebody didn’t believe in us, we were the dumb kid in school. There’s all these reasons so we get in this business because we’ve got a chip on our shoulder and want significance. And then we start fighting for it and start fighting for it. And initially it’s okay, it’s what gives us that initial drive and motivation that we need to get off or butts and change something.

But the problem is that some people get the hit of significance and they keep going after it like a drug. And they go for the next hit and the next hit and then next hit. And it’s, I don’t know, it’s weird. But you can’t, it’s hard to get that direction. You get little hits of it and it goes away, hit and it goes away, hit and it goes away. It’s almost like it’s face, it’s like a hollow significance. I don’t know.

But when you make that shift to service, contribution the significance will come, almost more than you can handle. It’s almost like, it’s tough now sometimes. I love it, I’m not going to lie, it feels amazing. But it’s interesting.

So for you, if you’re listening to this, look at the spectrum, are you seeking significance? And if so, don’t feel bad. It’s okay, it’s how all of us got here. But the fastest way to get that significance, is actually not seeking after it. It’s not by positioning and posturing yourself, it’s not by all those things. It’s by finding your people and serving them. And sometimes serving them means letting them go.

Sometimes it means helping them find other coaches, sometimes it means being okay if somebody else helps them with something. What is best for the person you’re serving? That should be the thought in your head constantly. What is the best for this person I’m trying to serve? What is the best for them? Not what’s the best for you, what’s the best for them? And if you think about that, it will change everything.

Anyway, I hope that helps. I’m back at the hotel, I’m now going to finish this podcast. When I finish it, what I’ll do, I’m going to save the title and I’ll end it. I’ll email it to my brother, and in a week or two it will be live on iTunes. And like I said, his beautiful wife will transcribe it and she’ll post it on Marketing Secrets-the blog, on marketingsecrets.com, and that’s kind of how this whole podcast thing works. It’s a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoyed tonight and I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving, no matter where you’re at around the world. Just remember that shifting from significance to contribution will change your life and it will change the lives of the people you have the opportunity to serve.

Alright with that said, appreciate you all. I’m getting messages from my wife and my brother and my sister all asking where I am at, so I better go in and see what’s up. Talk to you guys all soon. Bye everybody.

Who is Russell Brunson?

Over the past 10 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.